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Very few collectors know much about these, they are almost non-existent in original-matching (with scope rig) condition. So far as I know a complete original rifle doesn't exist. There is a great many cobbled together pieces..

This rifle, of course, is one CB use to own, it too has problems, the scope & bases have problems. When this rifle sold on Amoskeag for $8000 there was some discussions about its problems, or rather suspected problems.

It is a real sniper rifle, a Danzig/17, others exist in this range and this one has the right characteristics. It just isn't totally original, but it is probably as good as they get. No "real" (complete) ones are known, though I am sure someone owns one somewhere, - there are great private collections out there, they just keep their holdings to themselves.

Personally I think its quite amazing how many pieces Craig Brown owned that were sold at auction. And then how quickly they came back up for sale again. I just hope some these went too private collections and not just flippers.

I have an example of one of these. The bolt, barreled receiver and trigger/ mag match. The stock and all metal are all matching to each other with a different number and there appears to be a depot stamp on the butt. The Scope and mount are period and lock up quite nicely. It appears they were together for a long time. Who knows. I have read is that the Germans were no where near as fussy about renumbering repaired rifles during the first war as they were in the second.

While it is true the Germans in WWI were more frugal (big recyclers) and were rather lazier than their son's and grandson's in WWII when it comes to force matching up reworked rifles, it is also true that it is as close to a rule as one can get that the stock and bolt body were re-numbered to match the barreled receiver when replaced.

Jordan, these flippers do a great service to research, often more than "serious collectors", because these flippers, even dishonest ones like elite, typically take a lot of good pictures and in Larry's and elites case, almost always show under the stock. Eventually these rifles will work their way into collections, the good ones along with the bad and ugly...

If flippers did not exist then these rifles from great collectors like CB would go into large collections without being thoroughly documented. So, if flippers didn't exist, researchers wouldn't have very much data to base observations upon...